A couple months ago I made a post about a helpful diabetic herb that goes by many names- the Asian Pumpkin, the Shark Fin Melon, chilacayote, and its proper name- Cucurbita Ficifolia. It was actually misrepresented in the press as simply a pumpkin, which was somewhat astounding. I still wonder if Diabetics are eating regular orange pumpkins thinking that they are recieving health benefits. The original study is linked to in my first post about this Shark Fin Melon.

Someone came along and commented on my post with a couple of excellent sources for this hard to find vegetable in America. First off, you can find the seeds on J Hudson’s Website. It is under the name “Chilacayote”. The short description calls it by its normal name and you can actually order the seeds and attempt to grow them yourself. PLEASE EMAIL me if you decide to do this, I would love to do a writeup on how to grow them and how the entire process went.

A little more digging helped me find D-chiro-Inositol (DCI). DCI is related to Cucurbita Ficifolia in this study, by the same authors as the first: D-chiro-Inositol found in Cucurbita ficifolia (Cucurbitaceae) fruit extracts plays the hypoglycaemic role in streptozocin-diabetic rats. It appears that the D-chiro-Inositol might be the main ingredient of the Shark Fin Melon. If that is so, then what we would really want to suppliment is with the DCI.

Someone gave me a source for it! Here it is- Chiral Balance.

Please note that I have not yet tried this supplement and I have absolutely no idea if it is helpful or not. I would love someone’s input if they tried it. The company appears to promote the product for different uses.

The National Institute of Heath recently granted $169 Million Dollars to the University of South Florida to study the environmental causes of Type 1 Diabetes.

The causes for Type 1 Diabetes are thought to be both genetic and environmental, but not much research has gone into the environmental part of the equation. This study will follow babies with the genetic predisposition for Type 1 Diabetes for 10 years and monitor their environment and eating habits. The study will also take place internationally to control for geographic differences.

The study design and abstract are here- The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study. The press release from the USF Heath department is here- USF Center of 10-year International Study to Determine Cause of Juvenile Diabetes.

I feel that this is a great study that will highlight the problems associated with the modern diet. It is no coincidence that Type 1 Diabetes occurrences have climbed dramatically since the 80’s. I think the advent of fast food and the lack of nutrition has certainly helped the disease. Personally, I always make it a point to ask Type 1 Diabetics that I meet about their eating habits when they were younger. Every one that I can recall has always talked about having a sweet tooth, or a certain love for candy. I know that I used to eat table sugar in a bowl with milk after realizing that the cereal was just spoiling the flavor. I now think this probably had something to do with becoming Diabetic.

Other diabetics I know share a similar story, or at least felt they ate too many sweets when they were younger. If your a Type 1 Diabetic reading this- go ahead and share your story in the comments. How would you rate your pre-diabetes eating habits?